1 in 5

Infected are
health care workers

It's estimated that around 1 in 5 COVID-19 cases will be healthcare workers. Places like Minnesota are already reporting that happening.

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As a nation, we are facing a realistic worst-case estimate of 40-70% of Americans falling seriously ill or dying from COVID-19. That's 214 million citizens -- old, chronically ill, young, and healthy.

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Unlucky for us, nurses and doctors are not immune to this novel human virus. There's no treatment or cure. Nearly 200 healthcare professionals have died during the two week "shelter in place" -- designed to "flatten the curve" and ease hospital impacting. In more than 100 years, the institution of modern medicine has never been faced with this kind of challenge.

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Currently, our human heroes on the front lines of the COVID-19 public health emergency are almost singularly shouldered with burden of lack of access to protective equipment, ventilators, CPAP machines, and blood. 

It's time for we the people to lend a hand.

Our Approach

Listening

We have non-slip clogs on the floors of COVID-19 units and are personally reading every email and text/FB/WhatsApp message.

Vetting

We only send masks and supplies that are are FDA guidelines-adherent, hospital-approved, and backed by healthcare providers.

Data

As of 3/30 our datasets are merging with ProjectN95, PPECoalition, and GetUsPPE to create a centralized, standardized repository for clinicians, researchers, and public health officials. We're mapping shortage hotspots based on requests from the front lines and sending reinforcements before it's too late. 

Pipeline

Inspired by Dr. Ed Livingston's "Call to Ideas" in the JAMA, we set out to procure a multi-threaded PPE supply chain pipeline with multiple redundancies to attenuate critical fail points. On 2/26 we finished prototyping and testing an anti-tamper, latex-free flat fold medical face mask design that could exceed BFE (99.1% vs 3M™ Standard Procedure Mask's > 95%)/PFE (95.6% vs. 3M™ Standard Procedure Mask's n/a) standards while eliminating the need for dwindling supply of knit elastic. On 3/27 we filed a provisional patent application with the USPTO: 29729526. Currently, we're producing these as "last resort" medical face masks at a Chinese factory that produces FDA-certified PPE and are working with US factories to replicate the process. You can keep track of our FDA device listing assignment details here. The process is currently being executed under the advisement of an FDA officer and adhering to FDA guidelines set forth during the pandemic.